DR. JOHNSON was observed by a musical friend of his to be extremely inattentive at a concert, whilst a celebrated solo player was running up the divisions and sub-divisions of notes upon his violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, told him how extremely difficult it was. "Difficult, do you call it, sir?" replied the doctor; "I wish it were _impossible_." CCCXXIX.--MR. CANNING'S PARASITES. NATURE descends down to infinite smallness. Mr. Canning has his parasites; and if you take a large buzzing blue-bottle fly, and look at it in a microscope, you may see twenty or thirty little ugly insects crawling about it, which doubtless think their fly to be the bluest, grandest, merriest, most important animal in the universe, and are convinced that the world would be at an end if it ceased to buzz.--S.S. CCCXXX.--PLEASANT DESERTS. A CERTAIN physician was so fond of administering medicine, that, seeing all the phials and pill-boxes of his patient completely emptied, and ranged in order on the table, he said, "Ah, sir, it gives me pleasure to attend you,--you _deserve_ to be ill." CCCXXXI.--A HOME ARGUMENT. BY one decisive argument Tom gained his lovely Kate's consent, To fix the bridal day. "Why in such haste, dear Tom, to wed? I shall not change my mind," she said. "But then," says he, "I _may_." CCCXXXII.--A BAD PEN. "NATURE has written 'honest man' on his face," said a friend to Jerrold, speaking of a person in whom Jerrold's faith was not altogether blind. "Humph!" Jerrold replied, "then the pen must have been a very bad one." CCCXXXIII.--WIGNELL THE ACTOR. ONE of old Mr. Sheridan's favorite characters was _Cato_: and on its revival at Covent Garden Theatre, a Mr. Wignell assumed his old-established part of _Portius_; and having stepped forward with a prodigious though accustomed strut, began:-- "The dawn is overcast; the morning lowers, And heavily, in clouds, brings on the day." The audience upon this began to vociferate "Prologue! prologue! prologue!" when Wignell, finding them resolute, without betraying any emotion, pause, or change in his voice and manner, proceeded as if it were part of the play:-- "Ladies and gentlemen, there has been no Prologue spoken to this play these twenty years-- The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome." This wonderful effusion put the audience in good humor: they laughed immoderately, clapped, and shouted "_Bravo_!" and Wignell still continued with his usual composure and stateliness. CCCXXXIV.--CANDOR.